A NEW Look and Back to blogging

Well Hello there!!! I have not fallen off the face of the Earth as most of you must think!!!! I have been so busy being a Mom and loving it!!!! I can not believe how much work it takes to keep that little person happy!!! But we are having a blast being parents and we do have the most beautiful baby around!!!

I have finally gotten around to downloading the pictures we have been taking on our snazy new camera we bought to document her life that we did a post on way back when, and now I am going to get back into the blogging world. So lets start with my NEW BLOG HEADER!!! Look up top!!!! Do you like it???? Kelsey at Kreated by Kelsey did it for me and she did such a great job if I do say so myself. It looks so great and it captures what my life is like now- filled with twice the Sweetness!!!

I captured all of my blog up until I got Chloe in the blog-to-book format and it turned out wonderful, so now we are on the path to a new blog- documenting my sweet precious Chloe.

So now that I finally downloaded all these pictures we have taken over the past 7 weeks, lets look at some, all of you have been asking for more pictures so I will be doing lots of mini blog posts this week to show all these sweet stories in her life since she was born seven weeks ago. I cant believe my baby is SEVEN weeks old!!!!

So let's start with the pictures of when she was born in the hospital.....

I really do have the most beautiful baby......

wrapped up tight is how she loved to be.....

Daddy and his baby girl.....

Now how many newborns look that pretty???

And everybody loves baby toes.....

My precious miracle ....... I am beyond blessed........

Daddy again......
I can see the love......

Just blessed.......

Thats just the start of the cuteness, I have tons of pictures of my precious and I will be much better at posting I promise. We are finally in a routine now and I will capture it all.....

Thank you all for the support and love through it all and I will be back tomorrow with another post!!!

We're Baaaaacccckkkk!!!!!

Hey guys!!!!! It feels so good to be back, and for life to have some sense of normalcy again!!! Don't get me wrong, these past 4 weeks with my angel, as I stayed home with her everyday and held her and bonded with her I will cherish forever. However I was getting stir crazy and I am very glad that it finally feels like we have our precious on a routine now at night and we are settled into our family of three :).

Let me start off by saying THANK YOU to so many of you who have mailed cards and gifts. I have received gifts from blogger friends that I have never even met!! That to me is so amazing that you have followed our story so closely and that you care that much! Also everything is going along just perfect with the adoption. Our attorney called just yesterday and said the juvenile court in our city just issued the final permanent custody order to us, which is the next to last step before the final decree of adoption is issued by the judge which my attorney said she believes will be issued by the end of this calendar year!!! YEAH!!!

Some of you have asked how the birth went and what my interaction is now with L the birth mom? Well the birth went well, although she did end up having to have a C-section, Chloe's shoulder's were just stuck, but I told you guys L was very small in stature. She was born at 6:42pm on October 16, 2011. L did hold Chloe for about 20 mins after her birth and fed her the first bottle, and then she said she was done, and she never wanted nor did she see her after that. She then authorized us to have full care and responsibility for her in the hospital as well as take her home from the hospital.

The nurses then put arm bands on Sweetness and I, they even gave us a room on the L and D floor, and we cared for Chloe and were able to stay there in the hospital with her for 2 days while she was a patient!!!! It was a total God thing!! (This was something we specifically prayed about- not having to leave her at the hospital and something or someone pull a fast one or start more drama again).

Above is the first time I held my little peanut. She is the smallest, most petit little thing. As soon as we laid eyes on her, we knew that this was our daughter. We had been waiting all these years, not just for a baby, not just any baby would do, we were waiting for HER. Thanks you Jesus!!!

We did not ask for a thing. The nurses were so attentive. They thought our story was so amazing and uplifting, they cried along with us as well. L was in her room 5 doors down, and I did go see her a couple of times, but her father and mother were in there all the time with her, and her father DID NOT want me visiting AT ALL. Basically because he did not want this to be an "open" adoption, he wanted L to have no way to contact me or the baby ever again, but L finally stood up to him, and told her it was going to be HER way, because this was her daughter. I was very proud of her.

She and I still text daily, but it is on a much scaled back level. I have ,ailed her newborn photos we have had taken professionally that I will post on here in another post, and she loves to see Chloe doing well. She tells me all the time she made the right choice, and she is so happy Chloe is so happy and well cared for. yesterday was her birthday and she could not believe i remembered ans sent her a card and gift. She said she sees me as a big sister. I believe the Lord brought us into her life not just for Chloe but to help mentor her too.

After 2 full days, L terminated her rights by signing the official documents on Oct. 18, 2011 allowing us take her home!! Then I got the full "mommy treatment", they would not let me walk out of the hospital..... I was wheeled out like all new mommies with the baby in her car seat on my lap. It was a nice touch for me, again God made sure I experienced everything! Below is a picture of her all snuggled in her car seat as we left the hospital for the long 8 hour drive home to Virginia with our miracle.......

She did wonderful on the ride, she slept for the majority of it, stopping only once to feed. When we arrived home to our house, my sweet Momma was there waiting to get her hands on her grandbaby and she had decorated our whole house with all sorts of balloons and yard decorations and banners everywhere to welcome home our most precious gift!!!! It was such a nice touch!! We took lots of pictures of it, but I don't have the camera with me at the moment so I can't add the pictures of it and I wanted to get this post up to reconnect with you all!! Our dream had finally become a reality, all the tears, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the heartache, all of it, every single bit of it, was WORTH.IT.ALL.to look in to the face of our angel as we carried her into her new home......

And so began my life filled with Sweetness AND Chloe....... :)

My first post as a real Mom to Chloe!!!

Hi my special friends!!! I first want to thank each and every one of you who have even offered one single prayer on our behalf over the last 3 1/2 years as we have cried out to the Lord to have mercy on us and give my barren womb a child or to bless us in some other way. And bless us in some other way HE DID!!! Chloe Faith arrived in our life on Sunday evening October 16, 2011 at 6:42pm, and her weight was actually 6lbs, 3.5 0zs, not 6 ozs as was previously reported.

I will do a long story about how it all went later, as you know, and I am quickly finding out, new mom's are exhausted, so I have a few seconds here while grandma is rocking Chloe, so that I can put up this blog post because so many of you deserve a look at the fruits of your faithful prayers.

So this first picture was the first time I ever laid my eyes on her, and held her, and I must say I was waterworks for quite sometime. When we arrived, the hospital staff gave Sweetness and I a room to care for her just as if I was a patient myself in the hospital and delivered. I could not believe it!! We never had to ask for anything. We showered in there, and had 2 beds for us to sleep in in there, it was truly a God thing let me say!

This next picture is my Sweetness with his girl, holding his girl for the first time, and he cried , oh the tears of joy to see my sweetness with his baby girl FINALLY!!!


Chloe LOVES to be very tightly wrapped up and swaddled at all times and she stays this way all the time. Well I wrapped her up and put on this hat after a bath in the hospital and sent this pic to my mom and she sent back a message saying she looked like an Indian papoose baby:) Maybe she does, but she snuggles really good like this!

So yesterday after the pediatrician and all adoption papers were signed (what an agonizing story- later I will write all about that one) we packed up to leave. My little 6lb bundle almost got swallowed up in her car seat!! But her she is cute as a button on the steps to the hospital. I just can not say enough wonderful things about the nurses and staff at Holy Spirit Hospital in Pennsylvania where she was born- they were wonderful!!!!

And then when we arrived home last night after an 7 hr. drive (me in the backseat diligently watching over my sweet girl, my mom had decorated the whole front yard and the garage and the inside of the house with balloons and banners. It was so nice to come home to all that love. We took pics of it on my big camera, these pics on this blog post are from my phone to make it easy right now. So I had my first night last night as a mommy with all the middle of the night feedings, and I am so tired. But I will cherish each one of these feedings because they grow so fast and it goes by so fast. So just so I could get a shower today I put here here in her boppy chair, and then she began to scream as I applied my shampoo, so I was stuck, but we made it through....welcome to parenthood right???



Again.... Glory to God, and all praise to Him who made this miracle possible!!! I know I doubted, but He did it in His timing not mine, and so I'm human. But I know so many of you were praying for us and really felt our pain, and you yourself maybe in the midst of the infertility pain. I understand and I so completely understand. Hang on your miracle is coming. There are so many things that happened with this delivery that I KNOW with out a doubt God's hand was all over this adoption , THIS MIRACLE, because Satan was trying his hardest to make it not happen.


Bless you all, and this silence on my blog, is just me loving every minute of my new peanut. I'll be back soon, with some more pics that you will love!!!! Blessings to all of you!!

CHLOE FAITH WAS BORN TODAY!!!!!

OUR MIRACLE CHLOE FAITH MARSDEN WAS BORN TODAY 10-16-11 BY EMERGENCY C- SECTION.  BUT SHE IS FINE AS WELL AS BIRTHMOM.  I WILL UPDATE WITH ALL THE FACTS REAL SOON, BUT SHE'S HERE!!!! SHE'S REALLY HERE!!!!

THANKS FOR ALL THE PRAYERS!!!!

Ok.....contractions have begin!!!!

Just a small update to tell you that L is in labor and we are on our way to Pennsylvania to see our beautiful Chloe born I hope.  We had just settled in for a nice.Friday evening and then she tells me I think its time..... So we took showers, called Mom to come pick up the dogs and then.packed the last few things and we are on the 6 hour drive now.  she is already having contractions 10 mins apart so I pray we don't miss it!!!

I'll update more when I know. Please keep praying for all involved.....

Thursday's Doctor's appointment

Okay so L went to her Doctor appt this afternoon, and I was so hoping this was going to be the one where he said let's do it!!! But it was meant not to be!

He said she is apparently not dilated at all. But Chloe is head down, and she is not effaced at all. L has continued to loose weight, and I did not get an update on the gall-bladder scan that was done on Monday. So she goes back on Tuesday, if she does not deliver between now and then, on Tuesday he will make the decision as to when he will induce her!!! FINALLY!!! Although I do not want her to have to go through an induction and the strenuousness of the pitocin contractions, I want Chloe to come out of there now!!!

That's all I have to report now, and I will report more when I know more, you know I will. I can feel all my prayer warriors praying for us from all around us all the time, and we so appreciate it!!!

Blessings to you all,

Still waiting...... on Chloe......

Well we are still waiting..... Me and L are still in CONSTANT all day contact everyday all day by texting. She says she is feeling fine but is ready to get her out. So she had an ultrasound of her gallbladder early Monday morning and they told her she would know the results at her weekly appointment on Thursday. So we are all hoping that the doctor is going to make a decision at the appointment on Thursday to induce or something. This waiting is becoming unbearable really.

Updating from my last post, my nephew has cut off all communication with L, so she is feeling very anxious, but I think it is best really for the whole situation. As I have said earlier they are not good for each other, they are like oil and water and very volatile but they both can not seem to break that "habit" and familiarity of one another. So hopefully after Chloe is born they will go their separate ways and the drama of all of this will die down and they can both move on.

As far as the paperwork goes, I overnighted my nephew's to him, and his dad has taken him to get his signed and notarized and done today, and hers can not be done until after the baby is born, so we will handle it when the baby is born. She is an adult, her dad can not force her to do anything really, and she has assured me that she is going to stand up to him if he tries to assert himself in any way she does not want. So please continue the prayers we need them desperately. This is where we need the Lord to fill her heart and especially her parents, and to let them stop making this so hard on her. They WANT her to give the child up anyway, I just will never understand why they continue to make it so difficult for her.

But I will continue to keep you updated. Thanks for all the love and prayers.